Thursday, March 29, 2012

Last week our team of 3 apprentice families and 2 full time missionary families, along with Sonny and Eunice Guild from the Halbert Institute of Missions at ACU traveled to the Nsobe Game Camp in Ndola for a team retreat. The retreat focused on team dynamics and missionary care. The Halbert Institute works with many mission teams all around the world and we were so blessed by our time with Sonny and Eunice. Jeremy, Whitney, Jason, and I trained with Halbert before we moved to Zambia so to be reunited with our Abilene mentors was so encouraging. While at Nsobe we had a little free time to explore the wildlife around. We ran into several little vervet monkeys, a few antelope species, and a pied kingfisher bird. Above are just a few pics I snapped along the way!

Monday, March 19, 2012

I got to sit behind this precious little one during worship yesterday. Often children from the Kampande church meet us at the door ready for their handshakes. Mrs. Kasono brings the great majority of them with her each week. Some are her own children but many of them are orphans she has taken in. I remember one week seeing her hand each of them (around 10 children) kwacha to tithe, such a sweet scene. Jason and I both love seeing their happy smiling faces each week. They like to sit extremely close to me during the service which sometimes makes me feel squished but I always get a kick out of their natural rythum during chorus songs being so much better than mine!

In the past I have been given a jokingly hard time by teammates about adding random pictures of flowers from our garden to my blog posts. It kind of made me think about if they were necessary but then I concluded...I like flowers/gardening, taking pictures, and taking pictures of flowers/garden scenery, so I will continue on. : ) Our rainy season will be coming to end in in May so I won't have near as many blooms to admire in a couple months anyway. Below is an amethyst plant ( I have been patiently waiting for it to bloom for what seems like FOREVER) and one of the blooms on one of our rose plants.

Our entire team leaves tomorrow morning for a team retreat at Nsobe Game Park in Ndola (about 4 hours away) for a few days. We will get to stay in little safari tents, go on fun game drives, canoe, and spend lots of good quality fun time together. I think we will all appreciate the relaxing time away and hopefully come back to Mumena refreshed and ready for the coming months!

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Today I write with a thankful heart for Jeremy and Whitney. They have had an abnormally rough week dealing with the results of a traumatic car accident. We are so thankful the Lord was watching over them and that they are okay. In order to give some reassurance to others that love them I awkwardly made them let me take a couple pictures of them today. : )

Jeremy and Whitney, we love you and are so blessed to be able to share our first years in Africa with you!